The Way of Pain

by Gregory Mattix

  The mist grew denser, the sulfurous odor more intense as they traveled. Steam vented explosively from a crevice in the earth with a loud hiss, startling all of them. The path eventually skirted a broad, bowl-shaped depression. At the bottom was a series of mud pits, bubbling with hot gases rising from underground. A rainbow sheen of minerals ringed the mud pits, their varied colors a vivid contrast to the drab, sickly-looking surroundings. The air was stifling with its heat and humidity, and Taren was drenched with sweat by the time they put the mud pits behind them.

  He briefly entertained the idea of trying to somehow carry Ferret magically but decided he’d likely do more harm than good. The expenditure of power would likely render him unconscious, then he’d be dead weight, the same as Ferret.

  The ground climbed a bit higher as they continued, and after wending along the path for perhaps a half an hour, they descended into an overgrown thicket of swampy water and wild foliage. Thigh-high scrubby grass and weeds, thorny bushes, and stunted trees draped with vines grew thick around the fetid water, choking the path. The reek of decaying plant matter was strong, and the ground became slick and spongy underfoot.

  Taren was about to suggest they take another break, for his back and shoulders were aching. Creel was continuing on with a grim determination he could only be amazed by. Just when Taren opened his mouth to request they stop, Mira gave a startled exclamation up ahead.

  The monk’s foot had plunged through a thin layer of vegetation into a marshy spot. She placed her weight on her staff and tried to pull herself free. With a wet sucking sound, her left foot emerged, covered in a slimy film of muck. She moved to step away but was halted by a vine wrapped around her ankle. Mira knelt down to pry it free.

  “Let’s stop for a bit,” Taren suggested.

  Creel nodded agreement, and they set Ferret down on a patch of firmer ground.

  “Mira, are you all right?” Taren approached, drawing one of his daggers to offer her.

  She had pried part of the vine away, and Taren was horrified to see it was covered in small, spiny hooks along its length. Her bare skin around her ankle was dotted with a dozen or more small puncture wounds, seeping blood.

  “There’s something unnatural about this vine,” she said, face tight with pain. More hooks tore free of her flesh as she peeled more of it away.

  Just then, the vine seemed to pulse, bunching up where it touched her ankle, then the bulge slid along its length, bringing to mind a snake swallowing a rodent. Mira gasped, her expression pained, as the vine continued to pulse.

  Taren was frozen in shock. “Is that thing—”

  “It’s feeding on her.” Creel was intently watching the undergrowth, hand on the hilt of Final Strike. “Cut her free, quickly. It’s not safe to remain here.”

  Taren severed the vine with a quick swipe of his dagger, but not before it pulsed a few more times as it sucked her blood. A blend of green-and-crimson fluid leaked from the severed length, and the vine abruptly recoiled back into the undergrowth of weeds and brush like a fleeing grass snake.

  Mira tore the remaining piece of vine free of her ankle, leaving parallel rings of bleeding wounds. She tossed the severed piece away with a disgusted look.

  Taren took her arm and helped her back to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “It stings, but I’ll manage.”

  The ground began to rumble ominously underfoot, followed by crunching and snapping of brush as though some large animal was moving toward them.

  Creel drew his sword. “Get back! It’s as I feared—a bog drowner!”

  The name meant nothing to Taren, but from the alarming noises, he had no desire to encounter such a beast. Mira stumbled as he helped her walk, leaning heavily on his shoulder, and he saw her face had gone pale.

  “I’m feeling dizzy,” she muttered.

  “It’s all right—I’ve got you.” Taren supported her as she had him back in Ammon Nor.

  The crashing of brush and rumbling sounds reached a crescendo, joined with loud noises of bubbling water. Taren looked over his shoulder, and in his shock, he nearly fell over. The entire thicket seemed to be congealing into some titanic monster. Its dimensions were hard to comprehend, for it was all brush and vines and roots, a squirming, slimy mass of muddy sludge and plant matter formed into a vaguely humanoid form, standing upon tree-trunk-thick legs. However, it seemed to have four or five appendages growing from a torso as broad as a horse cart. It lumbered out from the muck with a deep groaning sound, roots tearing free of the ground and water bubbling around it. Long, tentacular arms dripped muddy slime, the appendages formed of plant stalks and branches bound together with the thorny vines. Where its head should have been was an uprooted, inverted stump, with dirt-clodded roots dangling like locks of hair. Its body oozed muck, and the white skeleton of some large animal was embedded within its torso. The reek of rot intensified greatly with the behemoth’s approach.

  “Don’t let it ensnare you,” Creel warned, crouching low, sword raised before him. “It’ll try to drag you into itself, and you’ll be smothered to death.”

  A dripping appendage lashed out at Creel, but the monster hunter was ready. He leaped aside, sword hewing apart the tentacle, leaving the severed length squirming on the ground. A second, then a third tentacle shot out. He ducked and dodged its attacks.

  Mira struggled to take up a defensive stance, but she was clearly in no condition to fight. The creature had evidently siphoned more of her blood than they could have imagined.

  “You can’t fight this, Mira. Wait here.” Taren eased her down onto solid ground near where they’d laid Ferret.

  Creel cursed, and Taren turned his attention back to the battle. The warrior’s leg was ensnared around the thigh, and he was being dragged across the ground toward the bog drowner. He hacked at the thick tentacle, which looked as if it were fashioned of a massive root. Wood chips splintered off it as he struck, but he was dragged ever nearer. Two more tentacles, smaller, nimbler vines, undulated across the ground toward him.

  Taren sensed the ambient earth magic, but it was subdued, compared to the bright vitality of the monster and its environs, burning with a bright green aura like living earth magic. He focused on that, thinking to starve the creature by draining its essence as he had the Inquisition’s ogre, Glurk. Grass and weeds died and withered around him as he drew upon it, but he sensed the bog drowner resisting him, for it didn’t seem to weaken at all. He threw a battering ram of force at the monster, thinking to blast it apart much like he’d scattered the Nebarans on the bridge in the ruins.

  The bog drowner rocked backward, its mass deforming as slime and plant parts sloughed off it, but it swiftly regained its form, issuing a deep groaning bellow.

  Creel hacked off one of the approaching tendrils, but a second one had wrapped around the forearm of his sword arm. It continued to drag him closer with its main appendage. With his free hand, he reached into a pouch on his belt. He uncorked a small vial and poured it onto the hardy tentacle gripping his leg. When the mixture was exposed to air, it sizzled and burned a bright amber color. The liquid fire spattered the tentacle and burned holes through it like acid. Creel switched Final Strike to his left hand and chopped through the weakened tendril, freeing his leg. A second slash severed the vine constricting his sword arm. He rolled away and regained his feet.

  Taren changed his attack to fire, his hands burning like fiery gauntlets, then he blasted the monster with twin streams of flame. Plant matter blackened, and moisture boiled off the beast, but it kept coming. A scorched black seam formed along its torso, and it split apart like an overripe fruit. The two pieces lay twitching, smoke curling off them for a moment, but they quickly reformed into two smaller creatures, each the size of an ogre. One went for Creel, the other for Taren.

  “How do you fight these things?” Taren asked.

  Creel snorted. “I usually don’t—they’re a bloody pain in the arse to kill. I try to keep my distance and leave them be.
But there is a way—you have to destroy the heart of the monster. It’s a parasite, and the heart is usually anchored underground to leech off earth magic that fuels it.”

  He beheaded one of the beasts, the one that retained the tree-stump head. The heavy stump tumbled away, but the creature continued lurching toward him, tentacles grasping. Creel spun, dodging seeking tendrils, sword whirling and sending chunks of vines flying free. He chopped through one of the thing’s legs, and it toppled over, splashing back into the muck.

  “Can you keep it busy a couple minutes?” Creel asked. “I need some supplies from my pack.”

  “Uh, I’ll try my best.”

  Taren backed away out of reach of the grasping tendrils. He formed bonds of force to try to restrain the creatures. The first one he snared struggled, momentarily pinned in place, but then its form bulged and contorted, practically pouring itself past the bonds, and reformed once more. The bog drowner Creel had felled rippled and regrew a new leg to support itself then surged out of the muddy water. Taren threw a noose of magical force around the second one, tightening the bond too much, and it split in half at the waist. The two pieces wriggled around and formed into two smaller, man-sized creatures, along with the ogre-sized one.

  I guess I can keep destroying them until they are the size of beetles, then we can simply squash them underfoot. But the thought of hundreds of the tiny things swarming all over him made him shudder.

  With a closer look, his second sight revealed the bog drowner was leeching on earth magic much as he himself did, pulling more essence the more damage it took. A pulsing knot of energy was most intense under the marshy heart of the thicket, as Creel had said. He tried to focus on attacking the thing’s heart, when a thorny vine seized his leg and yanked him off his feet.

  “Taren!” Mira staggered to her feet, leaning heavily on her staff.

  Sharp hooks tore into Taren’s calf through his breeches. The pain and horror of being dragged toward the larger bog drowner broke his concentration, and he lost his grip on the magic. He slid in the mud, his hands unable to find purchase in the loose leaves and decaying matter. He pulled a dagger free of its sheath and slashed at the vine, cutting it free. More tentacles shot toward him, and he scrambled backward as swiftly as he could, slipping and sliding in his haste.

  But then Mira interjected herself, her staff whirling and intercepting the grasping tentacles, swatting them aside.

  Taren used her distraction to regain his feet. A quick glance over his shoulder found Creel kneeling beside his pack, pouring a vial of liquid into a small, nearly round ceramic jar.

  Mira’s blood loss slowed her reactions enough to where the tentacles latched onto her staff and pulled her forward. She released her staff, and the largest beast reeled the weapon in like a fish on a line, then absorbed it, shoving it into its pulpy torso. Taren tried to concentrate enough to regain his magic, but one of the smaller bog drowners circled past Mira and shambled toward him. The monk spun, a look of intense concentration on her face. With his second sight, Taren saw her form flare momentarily with a pure-white glow, energy coalescing around her leg as she delivered a powerful side-kick to the nearest bog drowner. She hit its hip area, her ki greatly bolstering the strength of her kick. The blow tore the beast free of the ground, small roots ripping loose, and it flew onto the stony ground several paces away. It crashed down hard, breaking apart into a mess of plant parts, and then lay unmoving.

  “It’s outside the range of its magic!” Taren exclaimed.

  The fallen bog drowner construct was no longer tethered to the greater parasite’s earth magic, the decaying matter now only giving off a faint glimmer of green aura.

  “Watch out!” Creel shouted.

  Taren looked around to see Mira yanked off her feet by the largest bog drowner, a pair of tentacles gripping her by leg and forearm. The smaller one’s tentacles were lashing out at Taren.

  A coppery shimmer cleaved the air between Taren and the monster. Severed vines tumbled away, and Creel pulled him backward.

  “Get clear—stay to the rocky ground. I’m going for its heart.” He held the small ceramic jar in his free hand.

  Mira struggled weakly but was dragged inexorably toward the creature, which lumbered a few steps toward her as if in anticipation of its meal. Creel, his sword now blazing with magic, raced between Mira and the beast. He slashed the tentacles gripping her free, then spun and delivered a powerful slash into the creature’s midsection. It parted like a rotten melon hewed in twain, its pieces tumbling to the ground.

  Taren darted forward and gripped Mira’s hands, helping her to her feet. The two of them moved clear of the area, onto the rocky ground near where the destroyed creature lay.

  The two halves of the bog drowner were rising up again, but Creel dashed past them, headed deeper into the marshy area. Muck and vines tore at his boots as he slogged through the swampy water, his sword clearing a path of grasping vines.

  Taren saw he was angling slightly away from the bog drowner’s heart. “About five paces to your left—near that rotten log!”

  Creel corrected his course and, when he reached the spot, dropped the clay jar into the muddy water then quickly moved away. The jar sank out of sight in the churning water.

  “Ignis,” Creel commanded.

  The muddy water lit up with a bright submerged flash, followed right after by an explosion that shook the ground. Muddy water and fetid plant matter erupted high into the air. At the same moment, the animated bog drowner constructs collapsed into piles of stinking plant parts. The earth magic animating the parasite faded from the entire area until it was the same dull glow of the surrounding environs.

  “Messy, but effective,” Creel said, looking pleased. “You two all right?”

  “We should be fine.” Mira frowned at the mud covering the three of them.

  “What was that you used?” Taren asked, curious since the explosive Creel had prepared used a magical trigger.

  “A recipe for a bomb I’ve used on occasion. Pity I didn’t have one prepped already.” Creel pulled out a small tile of stone from a pouch and showed it to Taren. It was a smooth piece of obsidian with an unfamiliar glyph carved on it. “This simple spark enchantment ignites the concoction: nitre, lantern oil, a few other ingredients to increase the potency. A variation on a dwarven explosive brew—commonly used in mining.”

  Creel kicked apart the remains of one of the beasts and retrieved Mira’s staff. He struck the end against the ground to remove most of the filth coating it, then handed it back to the monk.

  Mira thanked him then slumped down near Ferret. She took a long drink from her water skin.

  Taren joined her, realizing they’d better find a source of fresh water soon, for his skin was nearly empty. He glanced up and noted from the sun’s position it was early afternoon.

  “Should be safe now to rest here a bit then continue onward,” Creel said. “We’ll find a quiet place to lay Ferret to rest and hopefully be out of the Downs of Atur by nightfall.”

  Being away from this damnable place sounds great.

  Taren and Mira assisted each other in cleaning and bandaging the lacerations on their legs and arms caused by the thorny vines. Creel seemed unwounded due to his leather armor. He sat apart, occasionally sipping from his flask while gazing into the distance, apparently lost in thought.

  Mira was still weak from blood loss, but she insisted she could travel. That being decided, they were ready to continue in a short time.

  “I’ll carry her myself for a time. You two keep your eyes open for any more signs of monsters.” Creel hoisted Ferret in his arms.

  Taren didn’t protest since after his magical expenditure, he felt nearly as weak as Mira looked. He disassembled the litter and used the lighter iron bar as a staff. The other he strapped to his pack along with the blanket.

  Please, Sabyl, no more monsters. Let us make it safely back to hospitable lands.

  Chapter 9

  Several hours and a handf
ul of miles after the battle with the bog drowner, the trio stood over the grave they had just finished digging. The wind was whipping hard enough that Taren had to shift to the opposite side of the grave to keep the grit from his eyes. Dark storm clouds scudded across the sky as dusk approached. All in all, the weather suited the grim mood.

  Following the battle with the bog drowner, the terrain through the Downs of Atur had grown less difficult, a boon to their fatigue. They had eventually discovered this secluded vale, its ground covered in patchy grass and sheltered by a few surrounding stunted trees. Creel estimated they were yet a couple hours from the edge of the Downs. The trio was so wearied following the day’s battles and bearing Ferret’s weight that they wouldn’t have been able to travel much farther. And none of them had any desire to spend the night in such dangerous territory.

  Thus, they made the painful decision to lay Ferret to rest.

  Mira stood silently beside Taren, her face expressionless but her eyes betraying the sorrow she felt. Try as he might, Taren couldn’t seem to convince her she should bear no guilt for Ferret’s fate.

  Creel cleared his throat after a time then nodded he was ready. He had become more withdrawn throughout the afternoon, drinking more frequently from his flask.

  Taren grasped Ferret by the ankles, and Creel gripped her beneath the armpits. Together, they lifted and then gently lowered her into the grave. Mira tucked the girl’s woolen blanket around her until she was covered, protected from the dirt they would place upon her. The process of digging the grave in the hard earth was difficult until Taren had been able to use his magic to mold the ends of the two iron bars into very crude shovel heads. Even then, the sorrowful task had been time-consuming.

  Taren stepped out of the hole and gazed upon the shrouded figure of the young girl whom he had only known briefly but had instantly liked—a friend and kindred soul as lost upon the stormy sea of fate as he himself was. Damn it… Ferret was the one who should have gotten away from all this and lived a normal life. He sighed, trying again to picture her bright-eyed face and spirited disposition, rather than the torpid metal simulacrum that she had become.